Catching Butterflies in Papercups
by elphabah
Summary: She was Light's victim but also his best friend. Her only regret is that a view from heaven doesn't come with rosecolored glasses.


_Light, do you remember when we were little? _It was so long ago, ourfirst years of elementary school. Me with my Doremon obento box and you, with your respectable Power Ranger one, both of us wearing our clean and nicely ironed uniforms.

There were a couple bullies who used to pick on me because I was small, fragile. And then one day you came along and told them to leave me alone. You said you would always protect me, that we could be best friends and eat our lunch together every day. Thirteen years later, Light and you still save me when the shadows come—still protect me from the world.

I never got to tell youhow much you meant to me until now. Even after all you did.

Even after you were the one that killed me.

I've given it a lot of thought, watched the rest of the world play out like some kind of movie. There are others here, Light, the other people you killed. I never realized there could be so many of them. What were you thinking? This callus lead to careless because these criminals you tried on your own conviction—not all of them were guilty. These people that you punished, some of them had families, children and wives that they left behind. This is why we have justice, Light. This is why we have morals.

Light—your father? I think the greatest shock that came to me was when he showed up one day in the middle of this foggy world, this nothingness—I can't describe it. At first he did not recognize me for you see this place, this place you sent me, it changes us. I will tell you, Light, word for word what he told me. Your father sat down beside him and cried for several long moments before saying anything at all. I tried to comfort him, but what words could I use to make the pain less worse? In life what he had tried to ignore, the lies he had told himself, they could not protect him in death. Epiphany, it seems is a symptom of the afterlife.

"All along," he said, "all along, Ryuuzaki was right. My son was a killer. What am I to do? My son was a killer. . ."

Wasn't he your hero?

As children we used to play games like cops and robbers and remember how you always took the game so serious? One time you knocked me over and I scaped my knees. I cried and cried and then you felt sad. What happened to that instinct, Light? That instinct to feel sad when you knock someone over?

In the months leading up to my death, you changed so much. I can't pinpoint exactly, but there must have been a moment when our paths were no longer the same. You took the road less traveled and you ended up so lost. I think that's what happened in the end. You got lost and no one even realized it. No one could call you back from that dark lonely road. Not even me.

In many ways, I feel like I let you down. If I had been a better friend maybe it would never gotten to be like this. We could both be cops now, settling down maybe in a life together. Me and you. Wouldn't that have been nice?

There is a boy here, Light, who says he was your friend too. You must have met him after I died because I have never seen him before now. He is tall and gangly and kind of strange but he is someone to talk to and I think he shares my burden too. This terrible weight you left in our hearts, something I can't surrender from even in death.

Years are passing since I died but I still hear news about you and each time it makes my heart wrench. Your victims still keep showing up. What shred of humanity that could have been saved is now long gone. If there was some way I could will myself to earth, to stand before you in ghostly form...I would give anything, Light. Even my very soul.

Because what good has it done me, if all I can do is mourn over your wicked existence? Lament the destruction and dismantle of the brave wonderful person you could have been. This isn't justice you are serving, it's insanity. And I can feel the end drawing near. Call it intuition or the clarity of a dead girl, but you are slipping up and it truly is only a matter of time before you fall from this balance beam—this carefully orchestrated symphony. All the musicians are pausing to hear you play that last bar of the song.

And then it's darkness for you, Light. Because that terrible terrible monster you have listened to all the years is right. For a creature like you, there is no afterlife. There is nothing but an infinite black void.

So you will die and that will be the end of everything. Yagami Light will be no more. I'm sure that is quite convenient for you. . .

But I will be here long after the dust settles.

I will be here waiting for an encore.

Waiting for a more hopeful melody.


End file.
